


For All the World

by plumandfinch



Category: Call the Midwife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 12:05:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4624698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumandfinch/pseuds/plumandfinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She remembers the night, the shift to solitude. Da had taken over after Mum…after Mum.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For All the World

She remembers the night, the shift to solitude. Da had taken over after Mum…after Mum. His gruff voice stumbling over the sentences and mispronouncing words, never matching Mum’s smooth weaving of the tale. She had helped him with the words and it became the two of them, building together. Then, suddenly, she is too old for this.

With a deceitful heart, she pretends to be asleep as his solid footfalls reach her doorway. She hears him sigh and he clicks off her light before gently touching her shoulder. He is barely out of the door before her eyes pop open and she breathes relief at being left at bedtime for the first time that she can remember.

She’s alone from then on through nursing school and in the convent, of course. It isn’t until Patrick that it changes. Their first night, well, their first several nights if she’s being honest, were spent in a disconcerting pattern of heady exploration, passion, and delight. It isn’t until they’re ensconced, both refreshed and yet exhausted from their short honeymoon, in the flat that she realizes. They had driven home after lunch and a last stroll on the shore and had just enough time for her to be carried over the threshold (“Patrick! The neighbors!” she had found herself stammering. “Hang the neighbors” had come his staunch reply as he looped one arm across her shoulder blades and one under her knees) and to be kissed ravenously leaned against the kitchen counter before Timothy bounded through the front door.

A flurry of unpacking and present unwrapping had gotten them through dinner. Timothy had adored the model ship that they had brought him and gaily regaled them with stories of the mischief he and Jack had gotten up to in their absence.  They are watching him sail his ship across the living room carpet and Patrick is making tantalizing circles with his thumb on the back her hand when his face stretches into a huge yawn. “Dad,” Timothy remonstrates, “you’ve just come back from holiday. How is it that you are tired?” She can do nothing about the bright blush creeping into her face but it is not long before Timothy is bathed and tucked neatly into bed and they find themselves alone again.

She steps into his chest and threads her arms under his. “My love.” he says into her hair, he had called her that for the first time two days ago and hearing it still makes her heart wobble.  Her contented sigh turns into a yawn mirroring his and she can feel his chuckle against her cheek. By mutual agreement, they resign themselves to changing and crawling into bed. Patrick falls asleep first, his arm laid protectively around her waist and his first whiffling snores sinking into deep rumbles. She shifts cautiously so as not to wake him and watches his unlined face. She realizes, with a jolt of joy, that Timothy sleeps exactly the same way. _Her boys_. She shifts again, gently melding her back into his chest and laying her arm over his. She remembers all those years of going to sleep alone and the freedom she had felt that first night. Now, she wouldn’t go back for all the world.


End file.
